“That’s good.” He reached her face at last. “You’re the strongest woman I know. But you’re going to learn you don’t have to be tough with me.

“Here are the rules. You can give up at any time, admit I was right, that I do affect you. That you’re absolutely crazy about me.” That smile grew broader, even more arrogant and infuriating. “And then, if you want, we can call it an evening. You can walk away and I’ll let you. For tonight.” That smile shifted, became more of a threat with the devastating promise implied in it. “But both of us will know I won. So, just say the word. And you’re free to go.”

She smiled back, a quick, feral gesture, and rammed her knee into his groin.

It was a suicidal move, all in all. She was by herself, with her hands tied, with a man who physically outmatched her several times over.

Her hands were tied, her clothes scattered in tatters on the floor.

But she didn’t intend to run. She merely took one step back, threw out her chin and waited.

He’d made it a competition, and she didn’t quit or surrender. She intended to walk away with every hair in place, figuratively if not literally.

She’d call tonight an amusing diversion of sex games to his face, her sophisticated indifference intact.

It didn’t matter that the pit of her stomach was quivering with nerves or that she was way beyond the deep end of the pool. She was in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. A long time ago, she’d learned to mask fear, turn the energy that fueled it into her weapon. With this level of trepidation, she should be able to come up with a nuclear missile.

He’d bent over at the waist, no choice there for any man. When he straightened, he did it slow. Pure fury was in his gaze, and something else, that indefinable look again, the one that frightened her far worse than the threat of physical retribution.

“That’s not going to be enough to drive me away, Savannah,” he said softly.

He unbuckled his belt, his gaze remaining on hers. Savannah flicked her gaze over the action, came back to his face. “Well, it’s about time you got to the fucking part, isn’t it?” She tried to say it casually. “Most men aren’t into this much foreplay and conversation.”

“The cynical wisecracker. That’s the face I saw through first, did you know that?” He slid the strap free, dangled it loosely in his hand, his other hand over the fastening of his trousers. Her action apparently hadn’t dampened his enthusiasm. She could see his erection pressing against the placket of his zipper, and she had to force herself not to wet her lips. She couldn’t fight the dampening of her pussy, which responded to the sight, oblivious to her admonitions.

“But I didn’t get the whole picture until a few weeks ago. Do you know what happened then?”

“Why should I care?”

He shook his head at her. “It was two in the morning. I was coming home from a client’s fundraiser, and I stopped at a traffic light. A diner on the corner was still open, and I looked over, thinking about getting a cup of coffee.

“I saw a girl sitting on a barstool at the counter. Wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that were too big for her.

Sipping a fountain coke, laughing at something the late-shift waitress was saying to her.”

Savannah’s throat constricted, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to say anything. She wasn’t going down this path with him. This was just sex.

Rough, kinky sex, the kind she’d heard about. She could take it, as long as she stayed away from danger signs. Like the one that was going up right now, with every word he spoke.

“Something about her caught my eye, and then it hit me. The light changed and I didn’t even notice. I was looking at Savannah Tennyson, the indomitable femme fatale of Tennyson Industries, as some of my staff call you. Fondly, I might add.

When the waitress left you, you went back to playing with your straw in the Coke. You looked out the window, but you didn’t see me. There was something in your face. A softness, a wistfulness, and I realized just how lonely you really are. An incredibly independent, dynamic woman sitting alone at two in the morning in a diner, so she doesn’t have to be home during the loneliest time of night.”

“Stop it, Matt.” Her fingers clenched against the soft fabric of the undergarment binding her wrists.

“This isn’t funny. You want to fuck, we’ll fuck. Don’t pretend you give two damns about me, just to get into my pants.” She shifted her expression to pointedly look at her mostly naked body. “You’re already there, and I’ve told you I’m agreeable. So quit the dramatics, before you piss me off and I get out of the mood.”

“You talk like you have a choice.”

She yelped as he grasped her arm. In one effortless motion he had taken a seat in a chair and pulled her down on his lap. Face down, her hips crooked over his thigh, her ass in the air, her head hanging down so she saw the bottom of the chair, the backs of his legs.

“Kensington, you son of a—”

Crack!

Total shock was her first thought, followed by the pain as he slapped her buttocks, hard. He hadn’t held back, or if he had, she sure as hell didn’t want to know what he had in reserve.

“I told you, I won’t tolerate that type of language from you. You’re not that kind of person. You won’t pretend to be something you’re not around me.”

“No, I’m the kind of person who’s going to personally shoot your fucking balls off if you don’t—”

Whack!

She was right, he did have some in reserve.

“I’ll use the belt if you keep it up, Savannah. You want to go for round three?”

“You like abusing women, Matthew?” She made her voice go cold, though she was perilously close to tears. Not from the pain. That would have been bad enough. This was something else, something the pain was breaking loose in her chest, something terrible dislodging its claws from its secure place in her vitals where. As long as its claws didn’t move, she could bear its weight. If it started moving around, stirred by whatever it was he was doing to her, she’d start screaming and wouldn’t be able to stop. What was wrong with her?

“No. No, I don’t.” His touch turned even more dangerous, for instead of punishing, it became a caress.

Stroking her abused buttocks, he traced his fingers down the crease through the panties so the fabric rippled over her tender skin. His other hand remained flat on her back, keeping her in place. “There are things I could do to bring you more pleasure than you’ve ever known, if you’d just let me. I’d make love to you for hours, let you sleep in my arms without worry. Put fresh flowers in your room every morning before you wake so they’re the first thing you see. Take care of you.”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”

“I know. Which makes it all the more important that someone does.”

“Stop fu…messing with my head!”

He chuckled, and she despised her cowardice, but her nerve endings were still screaming from his last smack, and she wasn’t eager for a repeat performance. She pitied the backsides of his progeny, if he ever had any.

He continued that gentle, maddening stroking, at odds with his inexorable hold on her. “Would you like to see a recent modification we made to this room?”

“Would it matter if I didn’t?”

His arms shifted, turned her so he held her cradled in one arm. She felt small there, tucked in against him, unsettled because it was not an unpleasant place to be at all. His thumb slid under the lace edge at her hip as his hand moved up her thigh, and her breath caught in her throat at the potency of that touch. How could something so light cause such heat to spread through her blood, like an oil fire?

He removed his touch for a moment, reached under the table.

“Sit still.”

She twisted her head, startled as he slipped a Mardi Gras mask over her forehead. She had a momentary impression of its face, painted with exotic slashes of color and trimmed with feathers, before he had it seated over her eyes. Lifting her hair, he secured the band under it, so the elastic tie followed the back line of her ears across the nape of her neck.

Tassels sewn along the cheek edge of the mask fell to her jawline, caressing her face.

“What’s that for?”

“Sshhh. Spirit of the holiday. Watch this.” He reached for the table control panel this time.

She heard a whirring of gears, and the sound reminded her this room had five video conferencing monitors mounted in the ceiling that could be lowered to the eye level of the meeting attendees. As she lifted her gaze to follow the noise, she saw those were gone. What was coming down from the ceiling was a contraption of soft black straps and nylon mesh, connected to something that looked like an upholstered bench without legs, only far more narrow than a bench.

“Notice that it’s connected with wires to the ball bearings that slide along the circular track, the same system as we used for the video conferencing units,” Matt confirmed.

“It gives more options for movement.

And access.”

He was lifting her, and with her arms bound behind her back she couldn’t stop him. He made her feel weightless, as if it were nothing for him to carry her. He put her on her feet beside the table. Then his hands were on her face, making an adjustment to the mask. Suddenly she was blind, darkness covering the eye holes.

“Matt, what are you—”

“I think it’s best for this to be a surprise,” he said gently.

“No. I don’t like this.”

“You’re just afraid. You don’t have to be afraid.”

“I’m not,” she snapped. She felt desperate, like a cat squalling and clawing inside a burlap bag, knowing that she was about to be thrown into the river with nothing but a brick for company. The fear wasn’t rational.

She could tell him to stop, he’d told her she could quit at any time. But she couldn’t quit. Not in this type of game. Not with him. She swallowed, biting down on her tongue ferociously to calm herself.